There is nothing that sounds fun about a knee debridement, and the fact that Amare Stoudemire has played through pain is commendable. But we’ve got a modest proposal for him here in this week’s Throwin’ Elbows:

Amare’s expiration date

In 29 games this season, Amare Stoudemire had actually been very effective for the New York Knicks—he averaged 14.2 points on 57.7 percent shooting, impressive output given that he was on a minutes limit, playing just 23.5 minutes per game.

But the more important number for Stoudemire this season is two. That’s the number of “debridements” he will have had on his left knee here in 2013-14, and that’s a scary proposition.

A debridement is, basically, a clearing out of loose particles in the knee. If you need two debridements in the space of six months, on a knee that has also undergone microfracture surgery, then you’re probably on a collision course with total knee replacement surgery.

At this point, the best thing Stoudemire could do for the Knicks—and for his long-term health—would be to retire.

The Knicks owe him $44 million over the next two years, and they would have to pay him even if he were to quit. Under league rules, the Knicks could apply for salary cap relief one year from his final game. That would mean the Knicks would at least have Stoudemire’s final-year salary off the books in time to make a free-agent splash in 2014.

That, however, is not a likely scenario.

The Knicks have put Stoudemire’s return at 6-8 weeks, hoping he could be available for the playoffs. That’s far too optimistic, though. There is virtually no chance Stoudemire plays again this year, especially considering it took him more than nine weeks to return from the debridement he had earlier in the year. But at the same time, there’s virtually no chance he retires, not while he is only 30 and still effective when healthy.

It’s that “when healthy” qualifier that is the problem. When Stoudemire had microfracture surgery with the Suns in 2005, doctors warned the team that the procedure had probably given Stoudemire another six or seven years. That’s why the Suns were willing to let Stoudemire go back in the summer of ’10—they didn’t want to overpay for a guy whose knee came with an expiration date.

That expiration date is past. The best thing for all involved would be for Stoudemire to walk away.

CBA won’t stop the booing

Dwight Howard was booed Tuesday in his return to Orlando, which should surprise no one, of course. But the issue for the league going forward is how often we will see this sort of spectacle in the future, and whether the changes enacted in the last collective bargaining agreement were enough to force stars into staying put.

The answer will turn out to be no.

When the last CBA was being debated, the league was unable to get anything as airtight as a franchise tag or any other guarantee on keeping star players with the teams that drafted them written into the deal.

So we’ll continue to see what we saw with Howard and Chris Paul—players who fulfill their rookie contracts, secure their futures by signing a maximum extension with a player option, and then can leverage a trade out of a market they don’t like.

That means the drafting team will get the first seven years of the player’s career, but after that is no guarantee.

We might not see as many such moves made with the drama that attended the departures of stars like Howard, LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony (who returns tonight to Denver for the first time since forcing a trade to the Knicks two years ago), but the practice of star players bolting situations they don’t want to be in isn’t going to be hindered by the CBA.

One agent explains that the league’s insistence on cutting down the number of years a player can be offered in a max deal—something the NBA has fought for in the last two CBAs—winds up hurting small markets with star players.

“The max used to be seven years, don’t forget,” the agent said. “That might have gotten some teams into bad deals, but it also means you’re going to lose your stars faster. Cleveland would have had LeBron for two extra years if they could have signed that second deal for seven years.”

Next on the horizon for a potential messy break-up? Possibly Minnesota forward Kevin Love, who will be heading into the last year of his contract at the start of the ’14-15 season. The small-market Timberwolves have been mostly terrible during Love’s run with the team, and it’s not even certain that the organization would fight that hard to keep him aboard.